Author Archives: tpbale

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About tpbale

I teach politics at Queen Mary University of London.

‘Friends with benefits? Nine things worth knowing about the links between centre-left parties and trade unions’, LSE EUROPP blog, 21 April 2017

  Before Theresa May decided to go to the country, the election result many observers of UK politics were most looking forward to was the outcome of ‘super-union’ Unite’s bitter leadership contest between the incumbent, Len McCluskey, and his challenger, … Continue reading

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‘Snap election a win-win for Theresa May: she’ll crush Labour and make Brexit a little easier’, The Conversation, 18 April 2017

So Theresa May, it turns out, is only human. After months of denying she was going to do it, the British prime minister decided to call an early general election – first and foremost because she knows she’s going to … Continue reading

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‘The true picture of Labour members and supporters and their election campaigning’ (with Paul Webb and Monica Poletti), Labour List, 16 April 2017

At elections, a good ground game may not be everything but it still means something. In a tight race, it may even mean the difference between a party winning and losing.  But, if “boots on the ground” are at least … Continue reading

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‘A Conservative secret weapon at the last election – the non-members who worked for victory’, ConservativeHome, 2 May 2017

With local elections only a few weeks away, the Conservatives, like the nation’s other political parties, will be relying on their activists to do the on-the-ground campaigning that can occasionally make a difference between winning a seat or even a … Continue reading

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‘Fighting force?  What Lib Dem members and supporters did for the party in #GE2015’ (with Monica Poletti and Paul Webb), Liberal Democrat Newswire, 2 April 2017

The Lib Dems have quite a reputation as election campaigners, renowned and resented in equal measure for their Focus leaflets, their ‘Can’t win here’ bar-charts and their ubiquitous dayglo diamonds. Indeed one of the reasons why, at least before the … Continue reading

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‘The Conservatives who threatened to vote UKIP. All mouth and no trousers.’, ConservativeHome, 19 March 2017

So much has happened in politics since the summer that it takes a bit of effort to remember a time when Theresa May wasn’t the Conservative leader and Brexit wasn’t all we ever talked about. But cast your mind back, … Continue reading

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‘Out of touch and under threat’, Sunday People, 26 February, 2017.

LABOUR was founded to represent the interests of working people. But it was a lot simpler when those people had a lot in common with each other and many MPs came from ordinary backgrounds. As the service sector overtook manufacturing, … Continue reading

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‘Should Ukip just dissolve itself?’, CityAM, 1 March, 2017.

The phrase “existential threat” is bandied around a lot these days, but in Ukip’s case it is an accurate description of the danger it faces. With a Conservative Prime Minister not only determined to ensure that the UK leaves the … Continue reading

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‘Truth to tell: populism and the immigration debate’, LSE Politics and Policy, 1 March 2017.

We are living in a world where it’s no longer ‘the economy, stupid’. That’s not to say real wages, the cost of living, and tax-and-spend don’t matter to people anymore. Clearly, they still do. But they no longer trump nearly … Continue reading

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‘Can Labour survive Brexit?’, CityAm, 6 February 2017.

From the 1960s to the 1980s Labour was forever u-turning on whether the UK should join or leave Europe. But it seemed finally to have embraced Britain’s EU membership from the 1990s onwards. That was certainly the impression that the … Continue reading

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